When I first contacted the author to write this book, the most important requirement was that he had to mix fact and fiction. Why? The answer was simple. I knew from my own experience that that’s the way real life happens. Many historical truths that we consider authentic are no more than mere fictions. The set of circumstances surrounding the death of John Paul I is an example and, believe me, not the only one.
I must confess that the result surprised me very positively. Fact and fiction did mix adequately. With this artifice, it wasn’t my intention to ask readers to use their own means to distinguish fact from fiction. I just wanted them to know that not everything that has been said with an open smile, or with a look of deep despair, is the truth.
In these pages the author has created a character who represents me and honors me. I am grateful to him for the skill he showed in developing the plot, using me for his own purpose, as well as mine.
With all the conspiracy theories about the death of John Paul I that have been generated over the past thirty years, I’ve enjoyed staying in the shadows, particularly with all those experts commenting on it as if they were sole proprietors of the truth.
The institutions were not to blame, but rather the people who constituted them or worked for them.
I was a member of the P2 Loggia, and as a human being I am not, nor do I pretend to be, immune to sin or to making mistakes.
However, don’t fool yourselves. Only God will be my judge.
– J.C.